Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Teacher Plan
Reading CC Standards:
RL11-12.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and
connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including words with
multiple meanings or language that is particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful.
RL11-12.6 Analyze a case in which grasping point of view requires distinguishing what is directly stated in a text
from what is really meant.
Writing CC Standards:
W11-12.2a Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information
clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
a Introduce a topic; organize complex ideas, concepts, and information so that each new element builds on that
which precedes it to create a unified whole
What perspective does your poem convey about the First Each writer uses different literary devices that convey
World War? perspectives often linked to his experience of the war.
Structures
How will students know how to organize their ideas
and construct the piece of writing?
graphic organizers Take group notes on The Battle of Balaclava: Background.
teacher-written models Take group notes on The Charge of the Light Brigade with Lit. Devices
teacher-and-student Handout (graphic organizer).
written models Read and highlight evidence and reflection in the model essay.
various types of templates
Ss use a collection of graphic organizers in the Poetry Essay Handout. Ss take
notes for background / biography section for the intro, literary devices and
or frames
perspectives for the body, and analysis questions for the conclusion.
(ex: Painted Essay)
Writing / Revising
How will students draft / revise so that their final writing is clearly focused,
organized, and developed to show understanding of the central ideas?
group write, fully or in Write a section at a time with time for revision / sharing with partners for the
part thesis and introduction.
write section at a time Revise the body paragraphs independently by underlining examples from the
write full piece text and highlighting reflections and interpretations.
independently Revise / full group with the conclusion.
Proofread in partners for flow and G.U.M.
revise /share full group
revise /share partners
proofreading in partners
proofread w/tubaloos
1. Frayer Vocab Model: patriotism, romanticism, modernism, ambiguity. Define and discuss.
2. Read The Charge of the Light Brigade, and write down five questions about the poem. Share out questions.
3. Read background article, The Battle of Balaclava, aloud.
6. Take who, what, where, why notes. Summarize in pairs.
7. Review a list of literary devices.
8. Ask ss to read The Charge of the Light Brigade again in pairs and, as a group, identify literary devices.
9. Discuss the poem, the historical context, and the literary devices. Make inferences about what the author might
be saying about war in general or about this war in particular. Take public notes.
10. Ask ss to read the model essay. Underline details from the text in red. Ask ss to highlight phrases and sentences
The scene opens to the sound of six hundred horses' hoof beats, riding in unison. Alfred
Lord Tennyson, British poet laureate at the time, immortalized the tragedy of the Battle of
Bacalava with the sounds of horses and their heroic riders in The Charge of the Light Brigade.
Yet it was not the taste of battle that inspired Tennysons poem, it was a glowing account of the
tragic affair that appeared in the London Illustrated News in England. Reporter William Howard
Russell gushed about the Light Brigades desperate valor (The Charge of the Light Brigade,
2008, 1). Tennysons poem is carefully constructed to glorify the soldiers, the sacrifice, and the
tragedy of the Battle of Balaclava. Tennyson conveys his admiration for the six hundred by
writing a poem whose sounds and rhythms help readers feel as though they were there.
First, the structure of Tennysons poem shows the bravery and dedication of the soldiers.
Each line has two stressed syllables in a falling rhythm, creating the impression of hooves,
steadily carrying six hundred riders into an impossible battle. The faithful beat even continues
through the mistakes of a general:
Was there a man dismayd?
Not tho the soldier knew
Someone had blunderd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
While Tennyson makes it clear that the orders are misguided and that the soldiers know this, the
determined rhythm of the words continue, just as the men follow their orders into danger without
dismay. Tennyson uses the blunder not as a way to criticize the war, whose purpose is never
mentioned, but instead as a way of elevating his heroes. It is even more praiseworthy, Tennyson
seems to be saying, that these men are brave precisely because they follow unreasonable orders
without question.